Cynthia Kowal retired from a professional career as a research administrator in fall 2022. She has managed to pursue her interests in art over many years.  In 2010, at mid-life, she returned to her early love of painting by joining the Alan Bull Studio as a student, and dedicating herself to painting regularly in oils and acrylics. Her process draws from her own photographs for key compositional elements, but the finished work moves past the reference. Painting has allowed her to be expressive and focused, to work with direct action, and demonstrate thematic progression.  The work reflects a colorist’s sensibility and emotion, an idea of place and circumstance, and interesting composition. Many images serve as metaphors for experiential commentary on a changing work environment, enjoyment of the natural world and neighborhood. Her subjects include portraits, animals, street scenes, landscapes, beaver lodges, and maritime subjects. Her painting “Yellow House, Water Street” appears as a mural image on the Clipper City Rail Trail near Joppa Park.